File No. 412.11/42.
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Ambassador.
Washington, December 2, 1911.
Sir: The Department is in receipt of your despatch No. 1083 of the 22nd ultimo, in which you report that [etc.].
With reference to your request for a general instruction in the matter of these claims, the Department refers you to its telegram of October 11, 1911, communicating to you the substance of a circular which was sent by the Department to persons who had transmitted claims directly to it, and instructing you to advise in the sense of this circular claimants who had filed claims with the Embassy. A copy of this circular is enclosed herewith.
Your attention is invited to the statements contained in this circular and likewise in that transmitted by the Embassy to claimants under date of October 12, 1911,1 and to the effect that while the Embassy would on specific request from claimants present their claims informally to the Foreign Office for presentation to the Consultative [Page 950] Commission, the Embassy could do nothing more than this, and that it would be necessary for claimants, either personally or by attorney, to take all other needful measures in the premises. If further assistance is solicited from the Embassy by claimants whose claims have been presented by the Embassy to the Foreign Office for submission to the Consultative Commission, it would seem sufficient for the Embassy to call attention to the information already given such claimants in the circular letters referred to above.
The Department approves of your purpose, as stated in your telegram of November 25, 1911, to address a circular to all claimants on record in the Embassy, advising them of the extension of time granted by the Mexican Government for the presentation of claims of American citizens to the Consultative Commission. As copies of all claims prepared in triplicate in accordance with the Department’s claims circular are now on file in the Embassy except such as have recently been filed in the Department, and as the Department is not advised as to what claims have been presented to the Consultative Commission through the Foreign Office on the requests of the claimants communicated directly to the Embassy, the Department considers it advisable that the Embassy inform of the extension of time for the presentation of claims all claimants on record in the Embassy from whom requests for the submission of claims to the Foreign Office for presentation to the Consultative Commission have not been received; such notification to include claimants who originally filed claims directly in the Department, copies of which claims have been transmitted to the Embassy.
The Department presumes that claimants who have recently filed claims with the Embassy have been furnished with copies of the Embassy’s circular of October 12, 1911, or have been informed of the substance thereof, and that such claimants have been advised by the Embassy to notify it promptly if they desire to have their claims presented to the Foreign Office for submission to the Consultative Commission.
In view of the position previously taken by the Department that claimants must personally prosecute their claims before the Consultative Commission, and in consideration of the fact that the rules of the Commission would seem to contemplate that method of procedure, the Department does not consider that it is in a position to adopt your suggestion that all American claims which have not been submitted to the Consultative Commission be submitted to it en masse through diplomatic channels. However, the Department will be glad to receive a further expression of your views in regard to this matter.
I am [etc.]
- Inclosed to the Department October 21.↩